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6621

General Mach Discussion / Re: Power Supply for Motion Controlling

« on: September 22, 2010, 01:18:12 PM »

PJ,

Best to resolve one problem at a time here.

The pin assignments do not normally include pin 1 they are usually (but don't have to be) as follows;

X step - 2
X dir - 3
Y step - 4
Y dir - 5
Z step - 6
Z dir - 7

At this stage hard wire the enables (they will either be 5V or ground as per the driver instructions) and reconfigure Mach to the pin assignments (if you change anything).
Check that the parallel cable that you are using does actually have pin 1 connected to pin 1, 2 to 2, etc and, if you can, use a voltmeter to measure the PC parallel port outputs to check that, for example, the X dir pin changes state from approx 0V to approx 5V when you hit the X jog arrow keys.

If you report back we will proceed from here.

Tweakie.

6622

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.

« on: September 22, 2010, 12:40:19 PM »

Hi Guys,

I was issued with bit of a challenge recently to produce the Mayan Calendar to set dimensions on Oak together with their company name at as good a quality as their commercial controller and software can achieve. I think this full-size version is at least equal to their published example (the half-size was done just for a joke).
As with the others, this was produced with the Mach3 Engraving plugin – OK it’s a bit quirky but it gets the job done.

Tweakie.

6623

VIDEOS / Re: Laser Raster Engraving.

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:57:41 PM »

Hi Andrea,

Looking at the video of the Metaza that seems to be operating at (as near as I can tell) the same speed as my laser (1 second per line). Then how, I wonder, does it manage to fire all the dots per line that quickly ?.

Some alternatives to look at;

Have you tried drastically reducing the feedrate of the Mach plugin and seeing if you can get the pulses far enough apart to operate your magnet (I suspect that the Metaza magnet wire only travels a max of 0.025mm) ?
Can you redesign your magnet (reduce the mass) to make it faster ?

Tweakie.

6624

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Basic Problems

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:38:17 PM »

Franklin,

Mach outputs step and direction signals using two parallel port output pins for each motor.
The direction signal is held HIGH for one direction of rotation and LOW for the other direction of rotation.
The step signal is a pulse (usually active low) with one pulse for each step (or microstep) of the motor.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

6625

General Mach Discussion / Re: Help suddenly arrow keys do not operate

« on: September 21, 2010, 12:29:12 PM »

If you mean the numbered arrow keys then 'Num Lock' affects the operation of those.

Tweakie.

6626

VIDEOS / Re: Laser Raster Engraving.

« on: September 20, 2010, 09:24:48 AM »

Hi Andrea,

I am sorry but I do not fully understand your question.

I have made a bracket to mount a hand held engraver pen to the Z Axis of my machine and then used virtually the same GCode I would use for routing to Impact Engrave but this method is only really suitable for vector work http://www.cooperman.talktalk.net/impact5.wmv

Art's impact engraver / laser plugin was originally designed for raster magnet work and as far as I can see Mach's 'Digital Trigger' output is configured to an output pin of your choice which in turn, through an appropriate driver circuit (transistor) fires the magnet for one stroke. This action gets repeated according to the plugin's pulse repetition frequency until the image has been completed, one line at a time in much the same way as I use it to trigger my laser.

Hope this helps.

Tweakie.

6627